Hello Video Calls...and Goodbye

Video chatting has never been easier or more accessible, but nobody actually does it. Well, almost nobody.

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It's been around 20 years since all the technologies needed for video conferencing have been around. They get cheaper, they get tweaked, they get promoted, and they get extolled. But do they get used?

If we want to go back a step further, in 1965 the person-to-person video phone which was introduced and then rolled out at the 1964 World's Fair. It was a cute gimmick. Forty-six years later, with all sorts of video technology and cams everywhere, how many calls do you actually make using video? Probably, one a year. This is a laughable usage rate.

This basic person-to-person dynamic trickles up into the corporation, and this is why teleconferencing is one of those technologies that sounds good on paper, but costs a lot of money to do right and one I rarely see used enough to justify the expense.

Now, with the two camera cell phone, it's incredibly easily to make video calls. Everyone insisted that Apple, above all others, should add two cameras so people could make video calls with their iPhones. Everyone I know with an iPhone 4 has used the video call feature exactly ONCE, just to see if it works.

Skype added video, and Microsoft Live and Yahoo have had video for years. Who uses these features? Three groups that I can tell.

The first and foremost are the modern phone sex addicts who are exhibitionists and like to show themselves off on the cam. That's probably all of 0.5 percent of the population. Nobody wants to talk about them, and I think they were the ones ragging on Apple the most.

The second are podcasters who think it's cool do put their audio podcast in a video format. So everyone can watch a floating blurry head, wearing huge headphones yakking about this or that in an empty room. This probably accounts for another 0.2 percent of the population, if that.

Then there are people who routinely flip their video on whenever they wan to talk to someone. Boom. Video. Out of perhaps a hundred on my contact list, only about half dozen people do this. I have no idea why they do it. Apparently, most have had a concussion at least once in their life. I find it annoying and distracting. You end up looking in the background, trying to figure out what you are seeing. This is maybe another 0.5 percent of the population.

We have reached the limit; video calling could not get an easier or more accessible. Every Logitech cam plugs right into the USB port and works instantly as a cam for video calling. Apple's systems and other machines have cams built in and work with the touch of a button.

But still, how many people use the video feature with any consistency? Very few.

Perhaps the people who just flip it on all the time have the right idea. But maybe the idea is bad and video calls are a specialty thing. There is really no reason you have to see the person you are talking to on a phone call.

Or maybe you feel compelled to because of some personality disorder. We all know one or two people, for example, who must stare at you when talking while driving a car! You know what I'm talking about. The car driver who, instead of looking at the road, turns and looks at you while driving. You are afraid to look at them, because you think they will lose track of the fact that they should be looking at the road. It's beyond nerve-rattling.

When I encounter one of these people, I rudely interrupt them as they stare at me and say, "Watch the road! You do not have to look at me while you are talking!" I usually point at the road about then. That approach usually has the added benefit of shutting them up for a few minutes.

Are these people looking because they think I may have fallen asleep? I dunno.

Perhaps this is the sort of person who must turn on the video despite the fact that they can't see the person they are conversing with, because either they don't have a cam or they just don't want to video chat. I have no idea why people do this. It makes no sense. Luckily, there aren't enough video chatters to create peer group pressure to get me to turn on my cam.

John Dvorak is a columnist for PCMag.com and the host of the weekly TV video podcast CrankyGeeks. His work is licensed around the world. Previously a columnist for Forbes, Forbes Digital, PC World, Barrons, MacUser, PC/Computing, Smart Business and other magazines and newspapers. Former editor and consulting editor for Infoworld. Has appeared in the New York Times, LA Times, Philadelphia Enquirer, SF Examiner, Vancouver Sun. Was on the start-up team for CNet TV as well as ZDTV. At ZDTV (and TechTV) was host of Silicon...
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